In general, when a physician examines a patient, the first step is to identify the illness of a patient using a stethoscope in order to pinpoint the name of the patient's illness by the auscultated sound from the stethoscope. According to the diagnosis thus made with a stethoscope, a diagnostic plan for the patient is formulated. Depending upon the result of the initial diagnosis, further diagnostic procedure may be taken with higher precision diagnostic equipment.
Therefore, the first diagnostic step by means of a stethoscope is very important since it sets the course of the treatment for the patient. However, people living in modern times, accustomed to science and technology, tend to rely more on the results obtained from mechanical or electronic apparatus than on the diagnosis performed by the intuition and skill of an experienced physician.
Moreover, there can be a degree of difference between physicians in their diagnosis by a stethoscope through the auscultated sound, and the patient is not ready to accept such a diagnostic difference between physicians or between hospitals even if it is a minor difference. As a result, the patient is often exposed to an uncomfortable situation of accepting or rejecting without confidence the diagnosis made by the physician and the hospital.
In order to solve the above problem, an invention was disclosed in a prior art, in which the auscultated sound from a stethoscope automatically produces a diagnosis of a patient's illness on a display monitor through computer circuits without resort to a physician's intuition and experience.
According to said prior art, [Korean Patent Gazette 10-0387201 (published dated 12 Dec. 2003) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,924 B2 (registered dated 18 Feb. 2003) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,737,429], which were issued to the same inventor of the present application, analog wave signals of the auscultated sound data collected from an auscultating microphone of a stethoscope are converted into digital signals by an A/D converter, and then the converted digital signals are compared through searches with various standardized digital auscultating sound data of various symptoms of various illnesses which are stored by symptom of illness in computer circuits of a diagnostic system. By doing so, the auscultated sound data converted into digital auscultated sound data identifies the symptom of the patient's illness in the standardized diagnostic sound data stored in the computer circuits of a diagnostic system. In this process, the identification of the illness is done within allowable errors of data. The identified data showing the result of the diagnosis of the patient's illness is displayed on a monitor in visible characters showing the name of an illness, waveforms, pictures, and audible sounds.
This method of electronic diagnosis may resolve the problem of minor differences in diagnosis between physicians because the same diagnosis is available for the same symptoms of illness. This induces a patient to trust the physician and the diagnosis and helps lead to the enhancement of the results of the treatment.